Health service vision sees rise of the robots

BEDSIDE robots could do swathes of the work now done by doctors and nurses, saving the NHS almost £13billion a year – a tenth of its budget – a major report says today.

The controversial study led by Lord Darzi, a surgeon and former health minister, calls for the “full automation” of health and social services, as it would give staff “time to care” for patients.

Almost a third of the tasks now done by nurses, and nearly a quarter of that done by hospital doctors could be done by robots and artificial intelligence systems, it says.

As well as saving the NHS almost 10 per cent of its annual running costs, “carebots” in homes and care homes could take on 30 per cent of the workload now done by humans, the report says. Echoing a remark by Aneurin Bevan, the health minister when the NHS was launched in 1948, Lord Darzi’s report says: “In the 21st century NHS, it might not be the sound of a bedpan dropping that is heard in Whitehall, but that of a robot picking it up. The NHS turns 70 this year but we must turn our sights to the future. We should not accept an analogue NHS in a digital decade.”

The report, due out on June 19, follows calls from the Health Secretary for an expected cash boost to be focused on a “technological revolution” across the NHS, transforming the way it deals with pressures on it.

Jeremy Hunt has said he expects Theresa May to announce a “significant” investment in the health service, backed by a 10-year-plan, but has said funds must be used to change the way services are delivered.

The new report develops the proposal, calling for a specific fund to be created to ensure upfront investment in technology and sets out a future where robots and AI based systems are used to assess and diagnose patients, as well as increasingly used in surgery, and assisting with meals, transportation and rehabilitation.